WoW article: DeMar DeRozan is no Vince Carter

[DeRozan] was the second or third least productive guard/forward in the league last year...

Despite their advanced sabermetrics stat which I think is silly, their site is one of the only ones I know of that spends time criticizing the Raptors players and organization for everyone to read, ie. not behind a paywall.

Other sports analysis sites either laugh at the organization for its mistakes (understandable) or basically ignore it, but there always seems to be a Raptors-related article floating around there.

I also talked to someone who is a fan of the Celtics about the attitudes that were around in the bad old days before the Garnett/Allen trades and Rondo draft. He said that, like here, there was a tendency for fans to inflate the achievements of bad players -- like Gerald Green and Delonte West, and to suggest that, if they had enough time and the right conditions, they would develop at some unspecified future time, into legendary all-stars, mvp candidates etc.

I think fans in general engage in wishful thinking regarding their teams, and the problem with it is, not only is it plain wrong -- bad players do not turn into good players -- they are good or bad by nature, it hurts what should be the next step for fans, which is organized criticism of the regimes in charge of the rosters.

Or, to put it another way, not a lot of people here want to face the reality that, with the exception of Lowry, these players are bad, and are not helping the team win, but helping it lose, and that none of them are going to "develop" into anything of note. That's a depressing thing to believe, but it's the truth. On the other hand, the Celtics changed things very quickly in just one offseason. So that's what I'm hoping for, rather than the idea of transforming losing players into winning ones.

I don't think the current regime is going to accomplish this. I think a new regime is necessary, because obviously the success of the current regime is tied to the current players -- their players. If they are failures, then so is the regime. That's what I think is behind this disastrous DeRozan contract.

I know little about advanced stats, but basically Demar had 3 more turnovers, one less point on one more shot and a couple of rebounds less and their 'win score' is significantly lower and evidence that he didn't really have a good game.

Jonas is not "elite" talent. If he was, what does that make Dwight Howard, DeAndre Jordan, Tyson Chandler or "insert name of any coordinated starting center"? I think he has the potential to be a Joakim Noah with a much prettier jumpshot. Just my opinion though.

Lowry was the most efficient player in the GAME until he got hurt. Like tied with Harden, and yet harden got all the media attention. IMO if the raps had a winning record, those numbers were MVP like.

Derozan is going to be very good, maybe not elite in a way, but he will be able to dominate games with his scoring. We've seen him do it before, and as he ripens with age he will be more consistent, intelligent, and efficient at it.

Ross has potential, no one is pooling in to say elite talent, but he has a niche that he will master. Along with what else we've seen, including a strong commitment to defense, I think he could be an upper echelon player.

We have a really good team in 3-4 years of development with JUST this core.

I don't care if fans over-inflate the value/skill/potential of players on the team. My problem is when ownership, management, the coaching staff and media do it.

I think Valanciunas could become an elite C, but that's it for the Raptors. I think Lowry is a near-elite PG, but if he winds up re-signing for $10-15M per season, I suddenly think there will be much higher expectations and much more criticism headed his way (similar to DeRozan going from high value @ $3.3M to being an inefficient scorer who's not worth $9.5M).

I sincerely hope there aren't any Raptor fans who believe there's "elite" level talent on this roster...aside from Lowry (which is debatable).

Well, there are some currently popular threads about how Derozan is x, y, and z and that's encouraging and he'll "only get better", and he's "improving" and so on and so forth. Now, if the point is, "he will one day not be one of the worst players in the NBA" then I guess you're right, but I think the point is how he's becoming useful, which he isn't.

This season so far is shaping up a lot like last year in these forums, or how I remember it. A lot of people, who I end up blocking due to irrationality, talking about these guys and me posting the team's record, which is 2 or 3 losses for every win, and then a bunch of personal attacks against me for the heresy of pointing out that, with all of these impressive players, they're victoriously challenged. And a joke around the league.

So now they're talking gobbledygook about bad players with big contracts instead of organizing resistance and criticism and protest of the regime. Look what happened in Hell-A with the Dodgers. The fans forced that guy to sell the ball club to good owners, and now they're bringing in talent.

lol, if you're unable to appreciate the advancements in DD's game this year, and actually enjoy:

"My favourite part: [DeRozan] was the second or third least productive guard/forward in the league last year...",,,,,, note "last year"

HUH???? Your fav part is last year's review that disses a player giving his all for "your team", and showing improvement in damn near every area of his game THIS YEAR ? Some people here truly need professional help, or get past puberty to be happy.

Jonas is not "elite" talent. If he was, what does that make Dwight Howard, DeAndre Jordan, Tyson Chandler or "insert name of any coordinated starting center"? I think he has the potential to be a Joakim Noah with a much prettier jumpshot. Just my opinion though.

Anthony Davis is an "elite" talent.

Noah with a pretty jumper. You might not find that elite, but I'm pretty much salivating thinking about it. I also happen to think that's slightly a lot better than DeAndre Jordan.

lol, if you're unable to appreciate the advancements in DD's game this year, and actually enjoy:

"My favourite part: [DeRozan] was the second or third least productive guard/forward in the league last year...",,,,,, note "last year"

HUH???? Your fav part is last year's review that disses a player giving his all for "your team", and showing improvement in damn near every area of his game THIS YEAR ? Some people here truly need professional help, or get past puberty to be happy.

I get where he's coming from. For most people, whether a basketball player is 'good' or not is a subjective measure that's valued in highlight reel plays, box score stats and untapped potential. Trying to explain to someone that's a casual fan of the sport that an exciting but flawed player isn't very productive can be frustrating. A lot of people outside of these forums (and even some that frequent them) aren't concerned with things like efficiency, turnover rate and the like because watching the game casually doesn't really allow you to get a good sense of what's happening aside from the 'end result' of each possession.

For all of DeRozan's improvements this year, he's still a very average player AT THIS TIME, and he and Bargs have been effectively sabotaging the Raptors from within for the past 3 years. If you replaced DD with Jason Terry, right away the team would be significantly more dangerous offensively. Two years from now? Probably exactly the opposite. And that's the tough thing about advanced stats: they can give you a very accurate picture of what has happened in the past, but they can no more predict the future than you or I.

What they CAN tell us is that DeRozan is still a high volume, low efficiency player that struggles to bring more to the table than just scoring. It's up to DeRozan to change what the stats tell us.